Font Size: a A A

The evolution of institutional investor identity: Social movement mobilization in the shareholder activism field

Posted on:2002-05-09Degree:Ph.DType:Thesis
University:Northwestern UniversityCandidate:Proffitt, Winfred Trexler, JrFull Text:PDF
GTID:2466390011999169Subject:Management
Abstract/Summary:
Recent attempts to examine institutional transformation highlight social movements as important change forces, but questions remain about the specific mechanisms that drive change. Social movement mobilization is essentially a process of conflict engagement, but few analyses have empirically explored the relational nature of conflict at the field level. This thesis advances an institutional perspective on conflict and conflict resolution. An institutional field can be conceived as the relations formed around and within a given institutional arrangement. Field infrastructure contributes to the production of rationalized conflict episodes, a type of legitimate conflict. Periods of transition will be characterized by the entry of new disputants, grievances, mobilizing tactics, and conflict outcomes.;Using a longitudinal approach, I explore four field-level drivers that affect the volume of shareholder proposals from 1949 to 1997. These are: resource exposures, regulatory facilitation, constitutive discourse, leadership and coordination organizations and the level of corporate counter-mobilization. Specifically, I examine each factor's relative contribution to the overall increase in corporate governance and social policy shareholder proposals. Using a unique data set of 15,000 shareholder proposals I estimate negative binomial regression coefficients for each of the four mechanisms. The results suggest that mere resource exposures contribute only marginally to the overall volume of conflict, while discourse, mobilization and counter-mobilization processes are influential in driving the number of shareholder proposals from one year to the next.
Keywords/Search Tags:Institutional, Shareholder, Social, Mobilization, Field, Conflict
Related items